Early Sketches

When I was getting started with some of my landscape work, I made several sketches in my sketchbook to begin the exploration process. I wanted to keep these sketches loose, without a lot of detail, so as to not get lost in the minutia of the subject. I made sketches of scenes from Martha’s Vineyard, where my mother lived at the time and I used to visit every year. I also sketched scenes from my home state of Arizona, and places in and around the Phoenix area.

Anyway, it’s fun for me to look back these early sketches, both as a recollection of some of the places I visited (20 years ago now!), and as a reminder to keep it loose in my current work — to not get mired in details, but rather address the larger issues of composition, color and emotion in the piece I’m working on.